The Perfect Couple
by amaXdear
Summary: Everybody is fighting, so Collins and Angel give them a little advice on relationships. Completely pointless fluff.


They were at the Life Café, and it was awkward. On one side of the table sat Mimi, Angel, and Joanne. On the other was Roger, Collins and Maureen. Mark was in the middle. Mark, Angel, and Collins were in the awkward position of loving everybody, when everybody hated everybody but them. Confusing? You bet.

"So… Maureen, are you planning a new protest anytime soon?" Mark asked. Joanne snorted.

"Planning? Maureen? Yeah right."

"Of course I am," Maureen shot back, talking to Mark but leaning over to glare at Joanne. "I define my life by schedules and rules and never let loose. Why _wouldn't_ I know exactly what I'm going to do every day for the next decade of my life?"

"Hey, Roger," Angel interrupted hastily as Joanne started to reply. "Collins and I are going to go to this free concert thing uptown next weekend. You want to come?" Mimi glared at her, and too late Angel remembered that she had also invited her best friend.

"I don't know," Roger said vaguely.

"What were you thinking, asking Roger to commit to anything?" Mimi asked, just a little too loudly.

"Speaking of the word _commit_--" he began hotly.

"Yeah, let's discuss that," Joanne agreed. "You're familiar with the term, right Maureen?"

"You know what!" Maureen said angrily, standing. Mimi stood with her.

"Guys, please!" Mark pleaded. "This isn't the time!"

"It's a two-way street, isn't it?"

"Come on, guys, can't you go one day without--" Collins tried.

"Which way is your road heading?!"

"Mean what you say, _Pookie_!"

"At least I'm not shut up somewhere with a fucking guitar all day!"

"You and all your rules--"

"Letting strangers see it all--"

"Have _a_ rule now and--"

"Never seeing anybody or anything but--"

"SHUT UP!" Collins roared suddenly. Everyone quieted. Angel bounced up, giving her man a grateful kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, honey."

"No problem," he grinned, sitting down. He crossed his arms and looked at Angel expectantly, ready to let her lead the show. Angel stormed up to Roger and Maureen and grabbed them each by the hand. She marched over to the other side of the table and pushed them into their (ex-) significant others, crossing her arms sternly.

"Kiss and make up. Now," she ordered. There was a chorus of protests. "Listen, guys. This is a relatively painless process. Joanne, _trust_ Maureen. Let her socialize without freaking out. You're lucky to have each other, and she knows that. Being so strict all the time is only going to make her rebel more."

"Yeah!" Maureen said triumphantly.

"Speaking of which," Angel continued. "Maureen, I love you dearly. But you act like a whore." She ignored the woman's affronted squeak. "Flirt all you want, but not when Joanne is _ten_ _feet_ _away_. If you're friendly when she's right next to you, it's fine-- no, I mean it," she insisted. Joanne looked at her in disbelief. "If you're with each other, it shows that you're committed anyway. Otherwise it's just disrespectful."

"It's true," Collins muttered to Mark.

"Really?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Everybody knows you're not interested when you're holding hands with somebody else right in front of them. I'm totally cool with it."

"Hm." Mark fell silent, listening interestedly as Angel began her Mimi lecture.

"… call one of us! You can't say you're going to quit by yourself; it's way too hard for one person. And, honey, you really can't call Roger inconsistent when you're just being whimsy about _your_ addiction. He's not being overprotective. He knows what it's like and he's worried for you."

She rounded on Roger, looking positively ferocious. "And _you_… is April dead or not?"

He could only stare.

"I thought so. Is Mimi April? I thought not. So please, for God's sake _chill_. She is not going to slit her wrists in a bathtub! That is just _not_ Mimi. The past is in the past, and the future is in the future. Keep them separate or you're going to explode."

Huffing to herself, Angel sat down and crossed her legs. Mark snickered, and she turned to him.

"Oh, I almost forgot--Mark, get a girlfriend. Seriously."

He stopped laughing and Collins chuckled, throwing an arm around the back of Angel's chair. "Nice job," he smiled.

"Thank you," she preened. "I thought it went well. That was way overdue."

"Wasn't it? I'm surprised--"

"What, so now you're the love doctor?" Joanne stated dryly, stepping up to the table. "One wave of your magic wand and we're all fixed?"

"Yeah," Mimi piped up, taking a seat. Nobody--except for Mark--noticed when Roger fell into the chair next to her. Mark was just happy that everybody had stopped shouting, and neglected to point it out. "It's not fair to just point out all our flaws like a relationship is that simple."

"Uh, yeah it is," Collins said with a shrug. "From an outsiders perspective, your problems are pretty easily resolved. You are all _way_ too stubborn." Angel nodded wisely at his side.

"Oh come on, like you guys really have the perfect relationship," Maureen scoffed with a flip of her hair. She was still annoyed with the whore comment.

"How many times have we broken up in the past year?" Angel shot out immediately.

"Actually babe, there was that one time," Collins reminded her. She looked puzzled for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"Oh my God, I totally forgot about that! That was the stupidest…" she trailed off, chuckling.

"Wait, when was this?" Mimi asked. "You never told me you guys broke up."

"It lasted for-- what was it? Half an hour?"

"I wanted to run back after fourteen minutes," Angel admitted sheepishly.

"Yeah. So, there was one time when we got into this fight about-- what the hell was it?"

"You were correcting term papers and bitching about it, and I was having a shitty day so I told you to quit or get over it, and then we started arguing about money of all things." They both snickered, and everybody else felt left out.

"And we both stormed off in a huff, only to fall sobbing into each other's arms twenty minutes later, begging for forgiveness," Collins drawled, his voice syrupy sweet.

"Right in front of some kid's birthday, too," she giggled. "The moms were not happy."

"I was."

"Awww."

They shared a sweet kiss, and Mark sighed, voicing what everybody else was thinking.

"Why must they be so damn cute?"


End file.
